What Goes Around Comes Around - The Only Clear Winner in This SCO Versus IBM Case is Microsoft

PBS ^ | JUNE 19, 2003 | Robert X. Cringely

[Golden Eagle]

People suspect it got into SCO's code base during the joint project in 1998. But if not... how did it get there? SCO's lawyers had better hope IBM or Sequent licensed it to them. Because there's no question who wrote it.

Insanity. Your claims are akin to M$ going into court and claiming Stacker stole the compression technology FROM THEM.

You guys have a serious hangup. One that potentially caused you to look the other way while US trade secret technology made it's way out of the country and immediately around the world under the pretense of a 'free' license. Damn right I'm gonna ride your asses about it. I just can't believe you're 'Freepers'."

[Golden Eagle]

So what are you looking to do, come burn my house down?

That is the sort of thing previous 'commnunities' have been guilty of.

You guys don't like it simply because a long time Freeper and common lurker decided to call you on your positions, which upon examination appear to be contrary to US national interest. That's not my problem. That's yours.

[The Red Zone]

There is no proof, yet, that any "US trade secret technology" got into Linux. There is evidence that the results of published software research, which were not a secret AT ALL, made their way into both UNIX and Linux by parallel paths.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Competition is Good!

[Nick Danger]

please keep it up.

Not a problem. I love FR, and my favorite thing about it is that we have subject matter experts here on practically everything. People come in here and post silly conspiracies about airline crashes, and some Freeper will jump in and say, "I fly those things for United Airlines, and that's crap." The next guy comes in with his hysterical drug rant, and we get, "I not only play a doctor on the Internet, I am one, and you're full of it... and here's why."

I love it when that happens, because there are many subjects that I could get BS'ed about.

Economics and the computer business are not among them, so it's my turn to play Batman when the BS'ers come in on those things. You can repay me when some clown comes in to BS us about your field.

Remember the guy who claimed he was in the Army in Germany? He had a bunch of people fooled for a long time. So did the woman who had 'toured Viet Nam with Bob Hope.' Most of us don't go into these threads expecting ax grinders and con artists... everybody gets the benefit of the doubt until the Crap Quotient just gets too high to ignore. That happened a lot more quickly with this guy than most. In fact I don't recall ever seeing an act quite like this, on any subject. There's no alternate body of competing theory here, like we might see from a liberal disruptor or even a conspiracy theorist. This is pure rhetoric, pure venom, spewing at random, with no attempt at consistency or factual content of any kind. It is distilled disruption. The question is why. It's obviously not politics.

[Monster Zero]

Nick, you are ON FIRE today.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Nick is always one of the best technical reads to be had on Free Republic!

[Monster Zero]

It shows.

[InfraRed]

Excellent posts, guys!

Despite the FUD slinging that has been going on, I honestly believe this case will ultimately prove beneficial to Linux and the OSS community. What many initially believed to be a silver bullet with Tux's name on it, will likely demonstrate the professionalism and vitality of OSS to the masses.

It must really suck to be Boies. It doesn't look like this case will help his batting average much.

[Nick Danger]

I honestly believe this case will ultimately prove beneficial to Linux and the OSS community.

I think so too. I imagine that there has been some chafing at the 'discipline' that the Boys Boys have been trying to impose via OSDL, etc. It's like when the first "suits" started showing up at the USENIX conferences... big culture clash.

This will teach the doubters why they need it. They need their own "suits" in case the "other suits" come after them :)

I cling to the hope that IBM is going to do one of its occasional acts where it goes into the phone booth and comes out as the Caped 800-pound Gorilla and stomps something that is threatening the whole industry. They haven't had to do that since the original Pentiums had that floating-point bug.

This is worse. A plague of lawyers would ruin human life as we have known it.

[Golden Eagle]

I see the community is unfortunately alive and well. They apparently find it easy to ignore articles such as this one from yesterday at CNet:

Open source's moment of truth
By Richard Wilder
June 24, 2003, 4:00 AM PT


Over the past several years, corporate America has warmed to open-source software programs such as the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server.
Today, software from the open-source community, a worldwide group of developers who share their code freely with one another, competes head-to-head with programs from industry titans such as Microsoft and Sun Microsystems.

However, a legal battle between the Utah-based SCO Group and IBM could throw cold water on the relationship.

SCO is suing IBM for billions of dollars claiming that Big Blue took code from SCO's Unix operating system and added it to Linux. SCO has since revoked IBM's license to use its AIX version of Unix and requested that the judge permanently halt IBM's entire Unix business. Unfortunately for those watching the case, the facts are extremely complex and SCO has been tight-lipped about its evidence. The result is that analysts have pronounced the case everything from the the end of Linux to a complete farce.



Regardless of the case's outcome, however, the specter of liability has already been raised among the notoriously risk-averse ranks of corporate information officers. Already, industry analysts from Gartner have advised corporations to reconsider implementing Linux, especially on "mission critical" systems. In addition, SCO ensured that at least 1,500 of the world's top corporations were aware of the potential risks of using Linux when it sent them letters threatening direct legal action.

This tactic may seem strange to people who aren't lawyers--how could 1,500 companies infringe property rights they did not know existed when they bought their software? U.S. copyright and patent laws do not include an absolute protection against "innocent infringement" of such rights, although damages may be reduced for acts performed before you have notice of the rights. Once on notice, however, "innocent" purchasers are liable for damages and subject to an injunction if they continue to use or sell copies of the software. For customers and technology partners, this adds an additional element of risk to using open-source software and including such software in their own products.

Even if IBM prevails in this case, lingering doubts about future licensing problems could hinder further adoption of open-source software. Corporate IT spending is just beginning to stir after two years of deep sleep, but corporations will be wary of any risky IT investments, especially those that could also bring new legal risks. The open-source community must face these fears directly if it wishes to continue building their relationship with corporate America.

The specter of liability has already been raised among the notoriously risk-averse ranks of corporate information officers.
First, open-source distributors and integrators should "trust but verify" the origins and IP rights of the code within their products. Many organizations and companies developing open-source software already have methods to check the contributions to their code--that is, who owns what.

Some open-source software projects require contributors to provide legal documentation of ownership in the code they submit and use digital signatures to authenticate those submissions. These types of measures should continue to be improved and be implemented more broadly within the open-source community.

Another confidence-building step would be for the distributors or developers of open-source software to move away from offering their products "as is" and find ways to indemnify customers from any liability for intellectual property infringement. Some in the community might suggest that this step is too radical and that it runs counter to their ideals. However, by not offering at least some degree of comfort to their customers through indemnification, they risk ceding an important market advantage to those proprietary software companies that do.

Beyond the end users, the open-source community should look for ways to build trust among potential technology partners. Today's world of networked software requires interoperability and sharing. The open-source and proprietary communities can maintain their separate worldviews but, as they are interdependent, must find a way to communicate.

Even if IBM prevails in this case, lingering doubts about future licensing problems could hinder further adoption of open-source software.
For its part, the open-source community has to at least understand the vocabulary of the "IP conversation" that occurs among business partners that simultaneously compete and cooperate. Such a conversation allows such partners to efficiently communicate ownership interests in existing products and work constructively on new ones.

While I am optimistic that these adjustments can be made, it may expand the growing rift between those who see open source as a moral, if not religious movement, and those who see commercial opportunity in this alternative development model. For example, the Free Software Foundation believes that no piece of software should ever be "owned." It is clear that IBM, Red Hat and others that are interested in developing sustainable open-software-based businesses must find ways to coexist with proprietary software.

However, it is unclear to me how the corporate community can continue to work with those who reject the entire principle of software ownership and simultaneously protect their investment in their own products.

The open-source community has been an important force for competition and innovation for the information technology industry. Hopefully, it can learn from past and present experiences, including the SCO lawsuit, to improve its intellectual property practices and to mature as a critical part of the industry.

[Golden Eagle]

This is worse. A plague of lawyers would ruin human life as we have known it.

Thieves are infinitely more damaging to society than lawyers, whether you understand that concept or not.

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

Actually, theives and lawyers are exactly the same thing. Neither actually produces anything themselves. At his best, a lawyer merely convinces the state to steal something back for the rightful owner. But, as is more often the case today, most lawyers simply steal from the producers to give to the clever, unscrupulous, or those versed in the arcane tangles of modern law.

[AFreeBird]

as a few have pointed out, the possibility of igniting an industrywide IP meltdown. IBM is a patent powerhouse, and if it wants Linux to live then it can really lower the boom on SCO, just like it did on Sun. It won't be pretty.

Indeed. And I suspect the puppet masters pulling SCO strings and sitting back to watch the fireworks, feel they're insulated from the fallout. But as anyone who's played with fireworks knows; things can get out of hand and you can end up getting burnt.

[gitmo]

It is highly likely that a previous "SCO" acquired this code from IBM, or from Sequent, during a joint development project in 1998. It is very possible that SCO's lawyers did not know this when they filed the suit. Virtually no one at the "SCO" of today was at the "SCO" of 1998 (they are in fact different companies in different states).

These are two different companies? I thought they reincorporated in a different state.